By Na Jeong-ju
Staff Reporter
The administration is considering changing the name of Sejong City in line with a plan to replace the administrative town with an industrial belt for corporate giants, universities and institutes, sources said Wednesday.
Based on the special law, enacted in 2005 under the previous government, the administration was to have relocated nine ministries and four agencies to the area in South Chungcheong Province beginning in 2012.
However, the Lee Myung-bak administration will seek a revision to the law to keep the offices in Seoul and transform the envisioned town into a self-sufficient and multi-functional industrial city, according to the sources.
Cheong Wa Dae, the Office of the Prime Minister and the governing Grand National Party have already shared the plans and included them in an alternative development scheme to be made public next month.
"That means the administrative town project is now dead. No ministries and agencies will move there," a source close to the discussion told The Korea Times.
"The name of Sejong City may also be changed as it stands for the administrative town."
Opposition parties and most people in the Chungcheong provinces opposed the government's plan, calling President Lee a liar.
As Seoul mayor in the early 2000s, Lee opposed the relocation of government offices out of the capital. However, he pledged to keep the administrative town project during the 2007 presidential campaign.
Lee is expected to offer an apology or express regret over Sejong City in a nationally televised town hall meeting Friday night.
During the 100-minute-long meeting, Lee may appeal for firm backing for his administration in revising the project and pushing for the $19 billion scheme to refurbish four major rivers nationwide, which environmental groups and opposition parties oppose.
"What President Lee should do now is not to apologize, but to say he will keep the promises he made," Chung Sye-kyun, chairman of the main opposition Democratic Party, said Wednesday during the party's Supreme Council meeting.
"The revision plan will draw a strong backlash from the public and will fail."
According to the prime minister's office, the planned town will house 22 domestic and foreign institutes, including the International Vaccine Institute, the Asia Pacific Center for Theoretical Physics and the Max Planck Society.
The country's prestigious universities, such as Seoul National University, KAIST and Korea University, have also agreed to set up campuses there, it said.